Barred Owls Nesting — A Gift of 2020

"While we were in lockdown, the owls made our small world into a sanctuary."

Mother and child reunion: The baby fell out of the tree but apparently they’re made to do that. @mfwords

When 2020 hit with COVID-19, we, like most people, tried to avoid contact with other people. But that spring something else happened: Nature came to our doorstep. An old silver maple along the driveway has a large hole in it, and in fact each year the tree looks a little sicker, and we’ve considered having it taken down. In winter we had Dave Gates, a local tree surgeon, give it a look, and he figured it was “good for another year at least.”

Mother Barred owl looks cute, but not if you’re a chipmunk. @mfwords

Then something happened: We started hearing voices. All April, every evening, we heard owls hooting. They were loud. And in the mornings, pre-dawn, at like 4 a.m., they’d wake us up with their very noisy conversations. It seemed like they were right outside our bedroom window. And the truth is, they were. We just couldn’t figure out where. And since owls are relatively dormant in the daytime, and incredibly reclusive, silent fliers, it was tough to pin down exactly where they were.

Mother owl, returning to the nest. @mfwords

Then one evening, while hauling the garbage cans up the driveway from the curb, I caught site of large bird in flight, and it landed directly on the silver maple. It eyed me, then climbed into the large hole on the trunk, about 70 feet up. I was stunned, and also delighted. Now we had an idea where they were living.

Mother Barred, out early to hunt. @mfwords

This also made tracking the owl easier. Right: One owl, not two. So far, we’d only seen one, but we knew there was another one around, because we heard the pair in conversation. We could stand outside the house, either very early in the morning or just at dusk, and wait patiently and quietly. My wife, Karla, took to camping outside with a book every evening, just watching the tree for activity.

Mmmm, fresh dead chipmunk for dinner! @mfwords

What Karla soon realized was that the mother owl was bringing food to the nest, and not eating it herself. Karla also heard conversation between the two owls just before the mother owl would emerge from somewhere in the woods with prey in her claws. One night she actually witnessed the father owl bring “dinner” to the mother on an adjacent branch for a hand-off. Takeout! And the mouse was likely still warm, no less.

The babies emerge! @mfwords

Naturally we presumed what was up. There had to be hatchlings in that nest, and after a few weeks we finally began to see them poke their heads, in very wobbly fashion, out of the hole. In the morning they were especially loud, too, calling, in crackly voices nothing like the calming “who” of their parents. We don’t speak owl, but we figured they were screaming “We’re hungry!,” sinice babies, regardless of species, are demanding.

Little brother and littler sister. @mfwords

Eventually, though we really didn’t understand how this would work, it was time for the baby owls to fledge. One afternoon one of the babies clambered out of the nest. It looked very insecure and imbalanced, but apparently that’s just part of the deal with nestlings.

The awkward clamber up! @mfwords

The small owl ascended away from the nest and we were fairly sure it was doomed to fall. Which, of course, it was.

You think you’ve had a tough 2020?! @mfwords

Owls are more rugged than you’d guess. And even though this sad little bird couldn’t fly yet, it knew intuitively that it had to get back up in the air. Why? Because if it stayed on the ground, raccoons could easily attack and kill it, and even in the nest, we’d constantly witnessed crows harassing the area. This owl-let was in danger.

Nap time please. @mfwords

Once the baby owl made it to a branch on a tree on the opposite side of the yard from the nest, which it did by literally clawing its way up the side of the tree and then trudging across, it was clearly fried. We watched it close its eyes and fall asleep, though we stayed awake, wondering if the crows, calling back and forth overhead, would attack.

Comfort food? @mfwords

Eventually, it began to rain, and the fledgling was getting doused. Now, it was very awake and not very happy (well, I presume), but then the mother owl swooped in with a fresh kill, tore it to shreds, and began feeding the baby owl, beak to beak. It was adorable and, yes, simultaneously totally gross.

Round 2? @mfwords

The first tiny owl was out of the nest, and we’d spend the next several nights worried about it, whether it was going to be okay, and whether its parents (which mate for life, and can birth over 20 owls throughout their nearly two-decade-long lives) would be able to keep it safe. But then, in the midst of all that, we witnessed the second owl do exactly the same routine. It fledged the nest, fell out of the tree, walked and then climbed to another tree, and the two tiny owls called back and forth to each other through the foliage, with the mother owl swooping food to both over the course of a few weeks. In that time, finally, we witnessed the young owls make their first flights, shakily of course. But, you know, better than humans. And now, every once in a while, we still hear the owls calling in the woods. 2020? At least it gave us the owls.

Who needs a nest?

Tiny owls, together again.